In a digital camera or camera phone, color corrections must often be applied to the captured image so that the image truly and accurately reproduces the scene. In some instances, especially when the digital camera or camera phone makes use of a relatively small imaging sensor that is separated from the lens by only a few millimeters, the large angles between the center axis of the lens and the edges of the imaging sensor can cause shading and vignetting around the periphery of the sensor array, thus requiring substantial image processing to compensate for such imperfections in the captured image.
Under other circumstances, such as when capturing images under varying Illuminants, which might include tungsten lamps, fluorescent light sources, daylight, and so forth, some level of image processing is also required in order to correctly set the “white balance” point. If the white balance point is not correctly set, the resulting image can appear unnatural by having an inordinate amount of red, blue, yellow, or other color present in the image.